Tatsuno is now notorious for breeding invasive species (non-native Genji fireflies, Luciola cruciata) in the Matsuo-kyo valley, a famous sanctuary for fireflies.

The Tatsuno town government intentionally introduced non-native fireflies to attract the attention of tourists as well as locals and thereby made native fireflies go extinct there (Iguchi, 2003, 2009; see also Non-native fireflies intentionally introduced into Matsuo-kyo, Tatsuno, Japan: the loss of biodiversity). Nevertheless, the town government has concealed the destruction of ecological systems and has pretended to protect native fireflies for a long time (Iguchi, 2017). This is mainly because the town has gained tourism income through showing a vast number of fireflies.

Fireflies are certainly the most popular insects in Japan (Takada, 2010, 2011), and therefore the town has increased the number of them. It does not matter to the town whether they are native or not. Its tourism strategy is only to make large profits from their popularity.

Fig. 1. This map shows Matsuo-kyo where a large number of non-native fireflies were intentionally
introduced by the town government for tourism and thereby native fireflies have gone extinct. The map is shown using the Digital Japan Web System by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan.